Side chair, splat-back

Date1775-1800

MediumBlack walnut and yellow pine.

DimensionsOH 36 1/2; OW 19 1/8; SD 16 1/4.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1992-86,1

DescriptionAppearance: Side chair with flat crest shaped on the underside above a tapered beaker-form splat, the plain seat rail below enclosing a trapezoidal slip seat, legs square in cross section joined by front and side stretchers.

Construction: The chair was made without corner blocks, and its seat rail and stretcher joints have always been pinned. The shoe and the rear seat rail are separate elements, and the seat rails are 1 3/16" thick with deep rabbets. In typical Petersburg fashion, the slip-seat frame is comparatively heavy.
Label TextA number of chairs nearly identical to this one have been found in eastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, indicating that the design was widely popular in the Chesapeake and was produced in several localities. The chairmaker's incorporation of a stretcher between the front legs but none in the rear further suggests that this particular example was made in Petersburg, Virginia (see CWF 1933-10).

Straight-sided splats like the one employed here are most common on Chesapeake chairs of this general design, but alternatives in which the splat is variously pierced or even replaced by a baluster shape are known (CWF 1933-13). British examples of these splat renditions exist as well, illustrating the coastal southern propensity for adopting British furniture designs almost line-for-line. Mid-eighteenth-century British prototypes of the form likely evolved from chairs made early in the century by artisans in London, while the London chairs, in turn, clearly mimicked imported Chinese seating furniture. Householders in the lower Chesapeake later favored the design not because of its Asian ancestry, but because it fulfilled their strong preference for British-inspired furniture in the neat and plain style.
InscribedNone.
Markings"V" is chiseled into the rabbet of the front seat rail and the front member of the slip-seat frame.
ProvenanceThe chair and its mate were acquired from Susquehanna Antiques, Washington, DC, in 1992. Their early history is unknown.